


Recalled to Life

by drayton



Category: Oxford Time Travel Universe - Connie Willis
Genre: Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 14:10:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5500187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drayton/pseuds/drayton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spring, 1941.  Dunworthy's time is running out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recalled to Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Philomytha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philomytha/gifts).



“You don't believe me,” Polly said, as she handed Dunworthy a plate to dry. “You think I'm wrong.”

“Not at all.” Dunworthy cast a glance over his shoulder for eavesdroppers, and relaxed as Alf's piercing complaint drifted in from the sitting room.

“But it's _Sunday._ 'oo does lessons on a Sunday? Sounds like somefink 'itler thought up.”

Dunworthy and Polly exchanged amused glances as the sound of Alf and Binnie's squabbling reached them. The children had escaped doing the washing-up from lunch, only to encounter a worse fate. “Won the war,” Polly murmured. “They helped win the war.”

“The one with the Germans. Perhaps we should send reinforcements to ensure the same thing doesn't happen to Eileen.”

Polly handed him another plate. “In a minute. You haven't told me what's bothering you.”

Dunworthy sighed. “For decades, historians and time travel theorists have been arguing over the nature of the continuum, over whether altering history is impossible or inevitable, or somewhere in between.”

“And?”

“And now we have a series of events strongly suggesting that practical historians can play a restorative role in the continuum.” Dunworthy paused, clearly reluctant to continue, but Polly caught his train of thought.

“But no one in the future will ever know, because we're going to die here.”

“Perhaps,” Dunworthy said, looking down at his hands. “My days are running short, but you still have a few years yet. And Eileen...”

“Has the rest of her life. She might live long enough for the incongruity to resolve,” Polly said, sounding hopeful. “She might go home.”

“So might you,” Dunworthy said. Polly nodded, but he could tell she didn't believe him.

 

“You need to practice your reading,” Eileen was insisting, as they entered the sitting room. “I've had another note from your teacher.”

“ _This?!_ ” Alf said in outrage, as Eileen handed him a Bible. “Wot about a mystery?”

Dunworthy observed dryly, “As I recall, the last time you read from a mystery, you cheered the murderer and called for the demise of several other characters, including Miss Marple.”

Alf gave Dunworthy a black look that would have made lesser men quail, but forty years' worth of undergraduates and five of Colin had tempered his resolve. He trained an expectant glare on Alf until the boy's eyes dropped. Binnie, who'd witnessed the exchange, gave a derisive snort, but a stern look from Dunworthy quickly sent her back to practicing her penmanship.

“Start here,” Eileen told Alf, while flashing a grateful smile at Dunworthy.

As Alf reluctantly began to read, Dunworthy thought, _My good deed for the day._ _Or is it? Who knows what mischief a literate Alf Hodbin might get up to?_

Dunworthy took a seat by the fire and idly watched Eileen helping Alf as he stumbled over unfamiliar words. Eileen reminded him of someone he'd known, but he couldn't place them. Katarina Ehrhardt, perhaps? She'd been one of his students thirty years ago, and there was something about Eileen's posture that reminded him of Katarina…

“ 'ere, that don't make sense,” Alf said.

Dunworthy's attention returned to the present, as Eileen gently prompted, “What doesn't make sense?”

“ 'The people that walked in darkness 'ave seen a great light'? 'ow come no one got fined for showing a light in the blackout?”

Polly's lips twitched, and Dunworthy could sense that she was thinking, “They won the war.” He was immeasurably grateful to her for convincing him that Ishiwaka was wrong, that he'd been wrong about endangering every contemp he encountered. The burden of believing he'd destroyed history had been suffocating. Discovering that he'd been wrong had felt like a reprieve, even though his deadline was rapidly approaching. He hoped she wouldn't mourn his death too deeply. She had enough weighing on her mind without grieving over an old man, and really, he'd had a good run. _But I don't want to die. I want to watch Colin grow up, and go on teaching._

But the contemps didn't want to die, either, and many of them were doing so. He'd seen it, on this and previous drops. Some of the contemps had been unpleasant, fearful, petty people, not the irrepressibly cheerful heroes of historical myth, but most had risen to the challenge and performed well, sometimes in nightmarish circumstances. Not surprising, really, as striving for normalcy was a coping mechanism. Humans were wired to adapt.

 _Just as we've adapted_ , he thought _, making a household out of an Oxford don, two of his students, and a pair of East End urchins. So how does one adapt to dying?_

Dunworthy glanced up and saw Polly watching him with a troubled frown. Eileen must have sensed something, too, because she glanced up from the page, and in that moment, Dunworthy saw it.

Colin. Dear God, she reminded him of _Colin_ , and Mary Ahrens, not Katarina Ehrhardt. Colin and Eileen had the same cheekbones and eyes, and the same unquenchable optimism. _We failed._ _None of us_ _ma_ _d_ _e it back. But Eileen lived. That's more than I dared hope._

But he didn't know that, couldn't know that. Perhaps she and Colin were distant cousins. Traits could travel down the generations, cropping up now and then. Ned Henry had told him Lizzie Bittner looked to be a descendant of Mary Botoner, but Lizzie hadn't known anything about it.

Reason told him the resemblance didn't prove Colin was descended from Eileen, but instinct told him otherwise.

 

Later, as Polly was accompanying him to St. Paul's, she said, “What happened this afternoon? When Alf was reading? You were sad for a moment, and then you looked at Eileen so oddly. Is something wrong?”

“No.” _Something may be very right._ But Polly would be upset by the idea of Eileen spending the rest of her life as a contemp, so he needed to change the subject, and quickly. “Are you missing the ENSA shows? Eileen tells me you had quite a following.”

Polly raised an eyebrow at him. “Don't you start. All those years I spent becoming an historian, and here I am, making a name for myself by showing off my bum.”

“Mm. I had a drop, many years ago, where I had to pose as a dance instructor.”

“A dance instructor? _You?_ ” Polly said in amusement.

“Don't sound so surprised. I was actually rather good at it, but Wardrobe had kitted me out with shoes that were a size too small. Between the shoes pinching my toes, and lonely matrons pinching everything else, it wasn't one of my better drops.”

Polly chuckled, then said, “What was your worst drop? This?”

“Oh, no,” Dunworthy said. “Although the worst one was also a retrieval.”

“Kivrin Engle?”

“Yes. I shouldn't have gone, but everything was such a muddle that I couldn't trust anyone else to do the job. Or perhaps I could have, but I was too ill to think clearly.”

“And Colin was with you.”

Dunworthy smiled. “Twelve years old, and every bit as impossible as he is now, but I probably would have died without him. I'd no business being out of hospital.”

“Tell me what he was like, back then,” Polly said.

 _Ah, Colin or Sir Godfrey: two subjects guaranteed to distract_ , Dunworthy thought, and spent the rest of the journey to St. Paul's describing Colin as a child.

 

Oddly enough, on the roofs of St. Paul's, he had no fear of death. He was doing his bit, just as the others were, and there were times when he was too occupied with his duties to even recall that he was an historian, not a contemp. Only in the chill waiting silence between raids did he have time to wonder if it were the last night of his life.

The girls would mourn, but perhaps not for long, and they had each other to turn to for comfort. The children had lost so many people that they wouldn't think much about an elderly man they'd only known a short time. He hoped that Eileen's Mr. Goode would survive the war; from the way Alf and Binnie talked about him, it was clear he was important to them. He was important to Eileen, too, and Godfrey was important to Polly. She was half in love with him, just as she was half in love with Colin. How strange that time should separate Polly from two people who otherwise might have made her happy.

As he made his way down from the roofs for a cup of tea, he realized there was more light coming from the nave than should have been there. Had they missed an incendiary? He hurried the rest of the way down, nearly tripping in his haste, but the light flared and then faded to nothing before he could reach the bottom.

He thought in wonder, _The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined._ _It's the net! It's the net, and someone's come to retrieve us._

He made his way forward in the near-darkness, on unsteady legs, wondering if he'd only imagined the light. _Am I that desperate for rescue? I promised_ _Eileen_ _I'd check the drop as often as possible. I might as well take care of that now._

There was an air raid warden standing near the drop, and Dunworthy's heart sank. _The light was_ _only_ _an incendiary_ _after all_ _,_ _and_ _he came in to put_ _it_ _out._

The warden turned to him and said, “Mr. Dunworthy, I've got to get you out of here!”

It was Colin. His Colin, long since grown to manhood and looking both triumphant and weary. Had he been trying to reach them all this time? _So we're going to live,_ Dunworthy thought, as he stepped forward to embrace him. _But what sort of life are we returning to?_


End file.
